Gaza, September 8, 2009, (Pal Telegraph) - Back in 2000 gas was discovered close to the shore off Gaza. The vast majority of this vital resource lies within the Gaza Marine Area. Israel from the onset decided it wanted the entire field for its own purposes, having decided to change over to natural gas as the main fuel for its power stations and industry.
Two plans were originally drawn up:
• Take the gas by subsea pipeline to El Arish (Egypt) and then by subsea pipeline to Ashkelon (making it look like Egyptian Gas)
• Take the gas directly to Ashekelon.
In December 2007, BG Group withdrew from negotiations with the Government of Israel for the sale of gas from the Gaza Marine field to Israel. In January 2008, BG Group closed its office in Israel and continued to evaluate options for commercialising the gas. In my own opinion I found the share ratio between all parties very unbalanced with Palestine only retaining 10%.
By mid 2008 BG had signed up with Egypt to pipe the entire supply to Egypt and then convert it to LNG for onwards shipment to the US or EU. This was a potential disaster for Israel as they needed the gas desperately to fulfil their supply requirements having decided to convert to natural gas.
The other problem was that the Gaza Strip had, during these discussions, come under the control of Hamas and added even more complications to a possible deal. By June 2008 Israel was now on a war footing with Gaza with a clear intention of removing Hamas from the strip in order to try and get something salvaged from the failed deal. It was during this time that the ex British Minister, Tony Blair became involved and tried to get BG and Israel to come back to the table and open up negotiations. BG responded and again returned to Israel for urgent talks and scrapped the deal with Egypt.
The Israeli Government then decided that the attack of Gaza would now have to be put back on hold as any activity could jeopardise talks between BG, Israel and the PA. Unfortunately yet again the talks failed and BG continued looking into other possibilities. By the end of the year Israel had made up its mind to go into Gaza and remove Hamas and in doing so would be in a good position to get their hands on these vast offshore reserves.
The attempted take over of the Gaza Strip failed as a direct result of the fortitude and spirit of Hamas and worldwide condemnation. We now have a situation whereby the people of Gaza/Palestine have this incredible offshore wealth but are unable to bring it ashore.
We read about all the financial aid that was promised by so many governments but where is this aid and do they really need it? The answer is simply no as they have all the wealth in the world in their offshore natural gas reserves.
Gaza does need urgent short term help in medical supplies and basic infrastructure support to get it up and running again. It needs significant help with its health infrastructure to cope with the ongoing sickness as a direct result of the Israelis bombardment and their use of weapons containing uranium components. There will now be a progressive rise in cancers, diabetes and birth complications which will put great pressure on their health system. Gaza also needs good quality water and basic food supplies and most of all it needs assistance to update and maintain its sewerage system which has totally collapsed.
Doesn't it appear strange that raw sewerage now has to be dumped into the sea as a direct result of Israelis blockade? Would anyone in Israel imagine that to swim off their beautiful beaches is now a severe health risk? Can they even imagine the volume of sewerage from 1.5 million people...I think last year alone it somewhere in the region of 16 billion litres. This year the system is in total collapse and therefore the sea is the only answer. The tidal currents will take all the pollution North along Israel's beautiful coastline. As they say what goes around comes around!
Now that we all fully understand what lies behind the Israeli - Gaza conflict we should be asking the question where are the United Nations and what are they doing about this? They were very quick to respond to Israel's disproportionate attack on Gaza. They were very quick to place a war crimes team into Gaza but what about the long running issue of the exploitation of Gaza/Palestine natural resources and these so called disputed borders that they have known about for many years? Let's just refresh their memories!
The EU and the UN Security Council have a prominent role to play in law enforcement and regulation in the region. Israel should be condemned internationally for its grave violations of international law regarding the exploitation of the Occupied Territory's natural resources. The country's blatant disregard for the pronounced international regulations has done nothing but increase Palestine's dependency on Israeli oil supplies. Israel is also in violation of the Oslo Accord which it manipulated to its own advantage.
Resolution 1803 (XVII) 18 December 1962 declares the right of peoples/nations to permanent sovereignty over their natural wealth/resources,
UN resolution 3005 (XXVII) 15 December 1972 affirmed the principle of sovereignty of the population of occupied territories over their natural wealth and resources and called upon all States, international organizations and specialized agencies not to recognize or co-operate with, or assist in any manner in, any measures undertaken by the occupying Power to exploit the resources of the occupied territories or to effect any changes in the demographic composition or geographic character or institutional structure of those territories
Affirms the right of the Arab States and peoples whose territories are under foreign occupation to permanent sovereignty over all their natural resources,
Reaffirms that all measures undertaken by Israel to exploit the human and natural resources of the occupied Arab territories are illegal and calls upon Israel to halt such measures forthwith;
Affirms the right of the Arab States and peoples whose territories are under Israeli occupation to the restitution of and full compensation for the exploitation and looting of, and damages to, the natural resources
Resolution No. 3175 (XXVIII) 17 December 1973
Affirming the Right of the Arabs to Permanent Sovereignty over National Resources in the Occupied Arab Territories
The above map shows UN International Maritime Borders but doesn't give any reference to Gaza/Palestinian Waters
It is ironic however that the UN does acknowledge that a disputed international border exists (as this map shows) so why doesn't the UN do something about all the above violations or address this so called disputed international border?
It is obvious that despite the UN condemnation of such issues it has no real strength in its ability to perform its duty. One would hope that the UN does not follow in the footsteps of its predecessor The League of Nations which failed dismally.
In the map below several natural gas fields sit within or stagger the Gaza/Israel disputed border which I have redrawn in white which is the 12 + 12 limits (that should apply to Gaza) and the extended red area which would be their EEZ. The area is prolific in Gas and I also believe that crude oil lies deeper under these fields. The map is not to scale but gives some idea of the proximity of the resources. As you can see considerably more offshore territory is available if it could rightfully claim its own EEZ (which is applicable to any other country).
Now you can see what all the fuss is about. How can we, as an international community or how can the UN just sit on our hands and allow Israel to rape the natural resources of Gaza/Palestine. It is obvious that one of the above fields is Gazan owned and sits totally in the middle of their zone (Gaza Marine 1 & 2). The one to the North (staggering the border) is jointly owned even though Israel claim it as their own (Noa & Noa South) and then we have the production platform called Mari B that may also be jointly owned sitting right on the border. We will discuss these fields in more detail in Part 2 of this series.
It is obvious that if Gaza/Palestine were allowed to claim what is rightfully theirs and if the United Nations stood firm in supporting them we would see a transformation in Gaza and West Bank that is beyond imagination.
Why does this simple problem become a major headache for them all to resolve? Why cant the UN Peacekeepers move into Gaza and take over the border control and once in place lift the entire blockade of Palestine by land, sea and air?
I think I already know the answer which caused the same problem in the Balkans and in Lebanon. All locations had been bombarded with new tech weapons which contained components of depleted or enriched uranium. All locations were used as a test bed for US manufactured weapons. What peacekeeper, in their right mind, would subject themselves to such contamination?
As we have already know the UN peacekeepers in the Balkans fell victim to DU contamination and many of those have since died. In Lebanon we saw a similar situation but this time the IDF did not reveal it had used such weapons even though samples recovered since the 2006 attack have tested positive to DU/EU weapons usage. The Lebanese and the UN suppressed this information in order to put in place the peacekeeping forces. It is obvious that had such troops found out the truth no troops would have gone into such a contaminated environment.
The writing is on the wall that we are unlikely to see UN Peacekeepers in Gaza or West Bank. To add insult to injury the UN through its agencies the UNEP and the UNDP have now commenced the clearing of all bombed structures and will over the next year remove and crush the rubble. This highly toxic residue will then be spread around the Gaza Strip for new roads.
As I have previously pointed out this is against the normal policy of the UNEP and UNDP in dealing with potentially contaminated sites so why has this been allowed to happen. Why are both these authorities allowed to create a vast secondary contamination of aerosols to drift over the entire strip once again and also spread into adjacent countries such as Israel, Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon etc? It is extremely hard to ascertain what the final death toll will be from the initial action by Israel (Cast Lead) and how this secondary contamination (by the UNEP/UNDP) will affect the entire region and beyond.
Gaza/Palestine does not need any handouts or run of the mill aid when it has such vast reserves. It can have whatever it wants if it were given the same chance like any other country to reap in its own resources....rather than let Israel rape it of its future. When we look at all the aid that is sent by boat or by convoy it's easy to understand that in most cases it doesn't get through....why? Because Israel doesn't allow it to get through? They control all borders (even the so called Egyptian controlled border) and have been handed control of the offshore waters by President Abbas.
WE should stop wasting these vast sums of money in aid, which incidentally frequently gets dumped in vast stockpiles out in the desert, because it has either expired or that the authorities don't allow it to be kept in good storage and it perishes. Is this the right way to treat compassionate donations from around the world?
So what is the simple solution...."Allow Gaza/Palestine to bring their own natural gas onshore to the Gaza Strip. Allow the wealth of these resources to fund major projects such as a large Domestic Gas Plant, a large Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) plant, build new Industrial Gas Turbine power stations (that run on natural gas), promote new Joint Venture industrial entities that run on natural gas and then create a public transport system that also runs on gas.
As you can see Gaza/Palestine could have a very prosperous future but will we, the world, allow this to happen and what price will the people of Palestine have to pay? One thing for sure the United Nations must accept that it failed Palestine miserably. As for the Oslo accord we can also look at this extremely flawed agreement in the next part and show how Israeli manipulated this agreement and then totally disregarded it.
- Peter Eyre, Middle East Consultant
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Tuesday, 08 September 2009
© 2010 - The Palestine Telegraph
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